THE INSPIRATION
How a Korean artist, recycled plastic bottles, and a lot of food coloring became Collection 09.
It started with research. While putting together our Women’s History Month post, we came across the work and story of Seund Ja Rhee — and we couldn’t move on. If you haven’t read that post yet, start there.
What drew Janet in most wasn’t just her story. It was her later work — the cosmic, geometric paintings built around the philosophy of yin and yang. Circular forms, bold contrasts, colors dotted with shapes that felt like her own galaxy. There was something in that balance of opposites — structured yet organic, bold yet considered — that felt instinctively iRi. We’d also been wanting to design the perfect summer heel for a while! Lightweight, breathable, genuinely comfortable for all-day wear, and built without petroleum-based materials (now called as ‘pleather’). Rhee’s world gave us the visual language we needed to make that happen.
WORK-IN-PROGRESS
Here’s the honest part: as a small brand, some of the most exciting sustainable materials out there — mushroom leather, pineapple leather, and so on — are simply not accessible to us yet (😞). The minimum order quantities are too high, and keeping our production batches small is something we are going to keep. Small batches mean less overproduction, less waste, and staying within the capacity of our family-run local manufacturer.
So we leaned what we do best! Instead of leather, we designed styles built almost entirely from our own custom-developed textile: 100% recycled KrPET polyester (made from plastic bottles collected locally in South Korea). Our longtime textile partner worked closely with us to develop the exact weight, texture, and pattern we needed.
From there, Janet repainted and reworked the fabrics into her own translation of Rhee’s galaxy, filtered through iRi’s lens. Every color combination in the collection traces back to Rhee’s palette, made distinctly ours.
SHOOT PREP
The world of Seund Ja Rhee doesn’t stop at the shoes. It runs through every corner of our lookbook!
From the makeup direction to the props, everything in the shoot connects back to Rhee’s motifs and what iRi represents. To keep the visual world tight and intentional, the team made every single prop by hand — cutting foam boards, dyeing fabrics using leftover food coloring and paint from previous shoots. Nothing wasted.
We also wanted the shoot to say something true about the shoes themselves. These are heels — some of them platforms — but comfort has always been top priority at iRi. We design for real wear, for people of all ages, for days that don’t stop. The lookbook was shot with that in mind: movement, ease, joy.
The kind of summer you actually want to have.
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